Tag: Royalties
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Google’s VP8 Patent Problem (It’s Even Bigger Than You Think)
Last week I encouraged Google to rethink their VP8 open sourcing patent strategy and “do the right open standards thing — join and contribute to responsible standards groups that are working to solve the royalty-free open standards need.” The blog was picked up in Simon Phipps’ ComputerWorld blog, ZDNet, The Register, LWN and elsewhere. At…
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How Google’s Open Sourcing of VP8 Harms the Open Web
Much of the initial commentary on Google’s open sourcing of the VP8 codec it acquired in purchasing On2 has breathlessly, and uncritically, centered on the purported game-changing impact of the move. But unfortunately, these commentaries miss an essential point that Google has studiously avoided mentioning the need to standardize royalty free codecs (not just release…
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Royalty free codec standards — don’t settle for less
After a lively debate, the IETF appears to be moving forward with a royalty-free audio codec standardization activity. Here’s to its successful launch and positive outcome. I’ve put a brief summary at the mpegrf.com site, and there is a good summary here. The group’s email discussion alias is here — and my view, expressed there…
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A Royalty-Free MPEG: It’s Time for ISO and ITU to Deliver
In late 2001, to much industry enthusiasm, H.264 and MPEG-4 AVC were launched as the world’s unifying codec family in a joint project between ITU and ISO/MPEG with the undertaking that the “JVT [Joint Video Team] will define a “baseline” profile. That profile should be royalty-free for all implementations.” The failure to deliver on this…
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“Conflict Through Consensus”: Europe’s Hybrid Broadbanders Paint on UK’s Project Canvas
A “Julius Stonian” observation: standards groups aren’t “consensus organizations”, they are political organizations. Winners declare their way the “consensus”, and changes in political context shift the “consensus”. So reflects calls in several slides at yesterday’s Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband (HBB) workshop to look deeper into Intellectual Property Rights and other control points in the new “broadcast+broadband” (aka…
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“Trust But Verify”: IPR & BBC’s Project Canvas
I have filed comments in the UK Project Canvas public consultation. To catch up on the UK context with global implications, watch James Murdock’s mesmerizing anti-BBC screed, and say… “This is the BBC.” Perhaps no other single phrase has broadcast more meaning to more people in the great call to communicate that has gripped our…
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6 Things You Should Know About Open Video & Open Standards
It is very exciting to see the “Open Video” movement taking off and finding voice with the upcoming Open Video Conference. This well-earned “open breakthrough” has been a long time coming. After all, open standards, and particularly royalty-free standards, are the very foundation of the Open Internet as we know it, and Internet leaders are…
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MPEG at 20
Updating market information in this post on the release of the royalty-free OMS Video draft specification, here are data points about MPEG released at the MPEG 20th Year Anniversary Commemoration in Tokyo in November 2008. Importantly, Lawrence A. Horn, CEO of the license administration company, affirmed the: “Freedom of Licensors and Licensees to develop competing…
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Patent Issues Top Open Media Goals
“Patent and legal issues” topped, at least numerically, the community goals developed at the recently-held Foundations of Open Media 2009 workshop, a write-up of which was just posted here. Also noted in “Patents and the bright future of open media codecs”, the FOMS group has set aside 15% of its budget to support patent analysis.…
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Why the Digital TV Delay May be a Good Thing
To be blunt: America has the world’s most overpriced, antiquated, under-performing and anti-convergence digital TV system, and yet another delay in transition will create yet another round of inevitably-necessary but paper-over-the-problems government subsidies to highly questionable interests of highly doubtful economic value to enfranchise millions of consumers into the digital TV transition who should never…